FAT CAT Barclays bosses were branded “obscene” yesterday for cutting up to 12,000 jobs while increasing the bonus pool for top executives to £2.38billion.

Barclays said around 7,000 of the jobs to go were in the UK and included branch-based roles. Around half of the affected employees have been told.

But the “scandalous” announcement of the 10 per cent bonus increase sparked fury after the bank revealed it came despite a 32 per cent drop in pre-tax annual profits to £5.2billion.

Angry unions attacked the bank with Unite saying the bonus increase would only drive up pay for those already on “unimaginably high salaries” at the expense of ordinary staff.

Unite national officer Dominic Hook said: “The culture change the bank promised will be less than skin-deep if those at the top still Hoover up obscene amounts of money while workers in call centres and branches struggle by on low wages and face the persistent pressure of job insecurity.”

The TUC added that it was “scandalous” that banks are still handing out multi-billion pound bonuses while ordinary Britons have suffered job losses, pay freezes and cuts to public services after the financial crisis.

“Barclays has stuck two fingers up to hard-pressed families across Britain by announcing another multi-billion pound bonus pool,” said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady.

The Institute of Directors also rounded on the bank, with Roger Barker, director of corporate governance, saying banks should be run for their shareholders, not top ­executives.

He said: “It cannot be right in any business for the executive bonus pool to be nearly three times bigger than the total dividend pay out to the company’s owners. In 2013, the bank paid out £859million in dividends compared to a staff bonus pool of £2.38billion.

“The question must be asked – for whom is this institution being run?”

We need a responsible banking sector which rejects the bonus-fuelled culture of the past and puts the needs of consumers and businesses back at the heart of what they do

Business Secretary Vince Cable

Business Secretary Vince Cable called for curbs on pay and said: “We need a responsible banking sector which rejects the bonus-fuelled culture of the past and puts the needs of consumers and businesses back at the heart of what they do.”

The job cuts come as the group’s profits were announced, with the bank taking the unusual step of publishing its headline full-year results a day early.

The bumper payouts mean the 26,200 investment banking employees alone shared a £1.6billion bonus pot for 2013, up 13 per cent on 2012, giving an average payout of about £60,000 per employee in the division.

Earlier this month Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins announced he would waive his annual bonus for 2013. He said he was forgoing the payout, which could have been up to 250 per cent of his £1.1million annual basic salary and amounted to £2.7million.

Mr Jenkins defended the bonuses and said the bank believed in “paying for performance and paying competitively”. He added it was “in a better position than we have been for many years”.

But he added that Barclays had “more work to do” as part of its overhaul and admitted plans to reduce costs by 2015 would have a significant impact on staff with 10,000 to 12,000 job losses this year out of its 140,000-strong workforce.